BOONE, N.C. -- An Appalachian State University student who reported seeing a gunman, leading to a 90-minute campus lockdown, admitted early Tuesday that he made up the story, police said.

"He's a nice kid who did something stupid," said Matt Stevens, an investigator with the Boone Police Department.

Matthew Haney told police and Eyewitness News on Monday that he saw an armed man wearing a ski mask inside his off-campus apartment near the school's Holmes Convocation Center. He said the man, wearing a black Pink Floyd T-shirt and a dark jacket, fled toward campus.

The allegations led campus police to issue an alert to staff and students via e-mail. After a second witness saw a man who resembled the supposed intruder, police from Boone, the university and Watauga County sheriff's deputies flooded the campus area. Appalachian State implemented the school’s plan of action and locked down the campus, evacuating dozens of students from the library, canceling evening classes and closing down the student union and bookstore. The lockdown was lifted around 6:30 p.m.

Boone police said Tuesday no armed or masked person was involved in any incident at Haney’s address. They said the witness sightings of a man matching the physical description, who was not armed or masked, were unnecessary and unrelated.

Police said they plan to charge Haney with a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report.

Stevens said the 22-year-old senior English major admitted to making up the report during while he was being questioned Tuesday morning.

"The motive, generally speaking, was he maintains he found his door damaged when he came home," Stevens said. "But he admits there was no man or armed man. He went to report it to his management and believed he would be held responsible. It sort of snowballed."

University spokeswoman Lynn Drury said the school had no comment on the hoax.

The lockdown occurred hours after university officials sent students an e-mail about plans for a new emergency message service. The service was created in response to shootings last April at Virginia Tech, where a student gunman killed 32 people and himself.

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